City by the Sea of Woe
by BerylCoronet
Summary: Mirror Universe of Star Trek Into Darkness. When Admiral Marcus is assassinated, Carol Marcus becomes a slave and ends up being owned by the very man who brought about her father's downfall: Khan. But the 20th century augment tyrant proves to be more humane than the people of the nightmarish Terran Empire.
1. Chapter 1

**City by the Sea of Woe**

Very strong warnings for sexual and physical violence. Nothing graphic, but this story still isn't for the faint of heart.

# # #

"Through me you pass into the city of woe:  
Through me you pass into eternal pain:  
Through me among the people lost for aye."  
― Dante Alighieri, _The Divine Comedy, Inferno _

Carol sat down in a corner, her arms wrapped around her bony knees. She was the topic of the conversation between the two men in the room, but she did not bother to follow it. The outcome would change nothing: she would still be property, a slave. She cared little for who owned her next. It had not always been this way for her. She had once been a Starfleet officer, a celebrated weapons expert with a PhD in applied physics, born to a life of luxury and privilege, the daughter of an admiral who had plotted, schemed and assassinated his way to the supreme command post. But then he had found it: Botany Bay, the 20th century sleeper ship filled with augments locked in their cryopods. Among them the famed tyrant of a time past, Khan Noonien Singh. Alexander Marcus had thought that the brilliant tactical mind the Terran Empire in all its greatness that failed to parallel would be just the advantage they needed in their ongoing conquest of the galaxy.

For a whole year, the plan had worked: Khan's military genius had helped built a new type of warship, the Dreadnought, a majestic one with giant phaser banks, long-range photon torpedoes, attack drones and defensive plating in addition to a new generation of shields. Her father had grown lax, drunk on his triumph and dreams of the imperial throne. That had been when Khan had escaped and in order to liberate his still frozen crew that her father held hostage, had allied himself with the captain of the ISS Enterprise, James Tiberius Kirk, who had a powerful friend with Command: Admiral Christopher Pike. Together Khan and Kirk had lured Admiral Marcus into a trap and murdered him, while Pike had decimated his supporters at HQ. Carol had been promptly stripped of her rank, expelled from Starfleet and sold into slavery.

At first, she had resisted, almost biting off the ear of the member of the Orion Syndicate who had bought her. He had ordered her whipped nearly to the bone then had her healed and given her to his crew. Afterwards he had sold her to Commodore Matt Decker, the commanding officer of the ISS Constellation. Decker had a personal beef with her dead father, who had passed him over for promotion one time too many. Carol had been angry and mad with grief and when Decker had tried to force himself on her, she had again fought back, giving him a black eye and scratching him, until her nails had broken off and her own fingers bled. His guards had dragged her to the agony booth, her clothes still torn and streaked with blood, and left her there until she had passed out from the pain. A medic had revived her, only for a new session to begin. She had lost track of time, her own distorted voice gurgling out animal screams she had barely recognized as her own, while everyone of her nerves had been flayed raw.

She had stopped resisted in the aftermath, letting Decker avail himself to her body, staring at the bulkhead with unseeing eyes, as he did. When he felt generous, the commodore mounted loud parties for his senior officers, during which the alcohol flowed freely and she was being shared around. Even her compliance did not spare her from the agony booth, in which she was regularly thrown on her master's whim, or the use of the agonizer. Pain was part of her daily existence and as the weeks bled into months, it became all she knew, doled at random, vicious and eviscerating. Pain, fear and hunger. Only Decker had the code to the replicator in his quarters, where she slept as well on a narrow, hard pallet on the floor, at the feet of his bed, and he only fed her when he remembered, which was once a day at best, throwing her scraps from his own meals. She lapped at them like a dog trained at her master's heel, while he laughed and taunted. She didn't care. Her cramping stomach overrode the shame. Her diminishing body with bones protruding from the pale skin did not become less desirable for Decker and his loyal officers and she still had to endure frequent and awful violations.

Then today, as she was waiting for her owner's return, curled naked on the floor, shivering in quarters that had been forgotten unheated, Decker walked in with a new companion. A low, thick baritone, sepulchral as it echoed against metallic walls, inquired about her price, before the stranger pushed back the cowl of his long, black coat to reveal himself to be Khan Noonien Singh, the man who had caused her father's downfall. A fresh shiver of terror clawed its way up Carol's spine. If Khan wanted to buy her, it could only be for some horrible, protracted revenged against her Dad, but then she recalled that anything the augment might do to her could hardly be any worse than the current nightmare that was her life and let her mind drift into that hazy zone of nothingness it so often wandered into these days.

She had no notion of how much time had passed, when a callused hand dug into an already bruised shoulder, dragging her to her feet. "Get up," Decker snapped at her and pushed her forward via an elbow to her ribs that awakened several dormant ached in her body. "She's all yours," the commodore added in condescending tone.

Carol did not look up. There was no point. She knew to whom she belonged now. A heavy coat that was too large for her dropped around her shivering body a moment later. She did not react. A communicator opened within her ear shot.

"Two to beam up. Directly to sick bay," Khan ordered.

# # #

Carol found herself in a medbay that was considerably larger than those on Constitution-class ships and had arched black walls. Blue light spilled from above and onto the equipment and the biobeds. Khan was speaking to someone Carol saw in the periphery of her vision: it was an elderly female Trill. Carol paid them no attention. After a while, the augment walked out leaving them alone. The alien removed the coat covering her. It occurred to Carol it might be the same one Khan had been wearing, when he had entered Decker's quarters. She shrugged off the piece of information; she had no use for it.

"Don't be afraid, dear," the Trill spoke softly in a warm tone of voice, using Standard. "I am Renhol and I am a doctor." She gestured that Carol lay down on one of the biobeds. Carol obeyed without a word. Decker always punished her, if she spoke unprompted or without prior permission. But most often he punished her for no reason, just to amuse himself.

Renhol covered her with a sort of medical sheet, but not before scanning her body with a triocorder, making disgruntled noises low in her throat, as she surveyed her readings. Carol stared at the ceiling, losing herself in her head again. She was disturbed several times, when the doctor stabbed her neck with hypos, but the slight pinches were a far cry from the torment of the agonizer. Her pupils grew heavy and her head fuzzy so she let her eyes drift closed and fell asleep.

She awoke with no idea of how long it had been, but feeling surprisingly refreshed, warm and blessedly free from pain, although her head still felt off. She stretched, enjoying the lassitude in her muscles, and noted that she was now covered by a duvet. After a moment of disorientation, she remembered that Decker had sold her and to whom. Her fear spiked again, now that she was rested, and she wondered if Khan had brought her to the infirmary to have some retaliatory medical experiments performed on her. If he had, there was nothing she could do to stop him. Opposition would only bring about more pain and violence. All she could was wait.

She did not have to wait long, for the doctor returned almost immediately and with a glass of water, which she held out to Carol. Not knowing what else to do and feeling parched, the woman took it and drained it instantly. The Trill smiled slightly at that.

"How are you feeling?"

Carol fell back on the bed. "Better," she confessed.

The Trill tutted approvingly. "Good. I gave you a sedative, while I tended to your bruises and lacerations and you had quite a few of both. You also had a broken rib and stress cardiomyopathy undoubtedly caused by intense physical distress. I took care of that as well. The malnutrition will take longer to remedy, however. I gave you some vitamins already, but we'll start slowly with some soup and fruit. What do you say?"

Carol nodded mutely, determined to take what she could get for now, especially if that was food. The alien left and returned shortly with a steaming bowl of broth and a plate containing pieces of apples, bananas, various berries, gespar and grapes, both Terran and Rigellian. Renhol placed them on Carol's bedside table and gestured that she should help herself. Carol did, starting with the soup, which was chicken, and tasted heavenly in her watering mouth.

"I will be keeping you in the sick bay for a few days to monitor your progress," the doctor spoke again.

Carol said nothing, busy practically inhaling her food. She had forgotten when it had been the last time she had had a warm meal.

"You are not very talkative, are you? I know it's difficult, but you might want to eat slower. You can have more later, but for now we'll have to be careful not to make yourself sick."

There was a pause during which the Trill studied her with a concerned gaze. "Nobody is going to hurt you again in this manner on the Vengeance," she said confidently.

Carol ignored her, grabbing for a banana. Renhol either flat-out lied or was delusional.

# # #

Khan came for her three days later. Carol was in a way relieved, no longer cooped up in the medbay with the doctor, who was probably mad, since she conducted no dissections on animals or tested drugs and torture instruments. Nobody else came there, either, which was no surprise on a ship probably full of augments. Renhol spoke a lot, mostly about Carol's poor health and the virtues of good nutrition but fed her regularly and even gave her sedatives to help her sleep better so she saw no reason to complain. The alien also insisted Carol wore clothes and replicated plain, white Trill dresses for her.

Carol would miss the steady supply of food and the strange lack of pain, but at least, she wouldn't have to spend her every waking minute on edge or waiting for the ax to fall. Khan had strolled in at a self-assured pace and walked straight up to Renhol. They had talked for a short while in hushed tones and then his gaze, dark despite the iridescent blue of his eyes, flickered to Carol and he inclined his head in her direction, summoning her without a word. Carol scrambled off the biobed and rushed to him. The Trill called after her, telling her she was supposed to come down for a check-up in a day or two. Carol barely nodded in her direction, fairly sure she would not be allowed to keep the appointment.

Khan led her through corridors bathed in the same bluish light halo from the infirmary and if Carol cared to guess, she would say they were aboard one of the Dreadnought ships. She had no idea where they were and what they were doing there, but she doubted she would ever need to know the answer to those questions. They took a turbo lift five decks down, from where Khan proceeded down yet another hallway, where he stopped to key a few commands on a panel, opening a door as he did to what were presumably his living quarters.

"Lights 100%," he commanded.

The area was spartan and rather cramped for what she had expected of a major political leader from the 20th century, but it was functional and furnished with all the necessities: a bed right below a tiny window to the stars outside, a desk with a monitor and a pad, two chairs, dresser, built-in replicator fixed in the wall and a second door no doubt permeating access to an en-suite bathroom. Carol wasted no time in pulling her dress over her head.

"Stop," he snapped, his voice vibrantly resonant in the cramped space they were in.

Carol dropped to her knees without thought, the impact resounding in her bones, as her heart leaped in her throat. She would be punished for whatever she had unwittingly done wrong.

"Get up," he ordered again. "This is not why I bought you. I need a physicists and weapons expert, not a whore."

His words took her off guard and she lifted her gaze hesitantly. He stood no farther than a foot from her. Her eyes traveled over black boots, straight black trousers and a plain gray sweater. It was more clothing and less revealing than Starfleet officers usually wore. His face was hard to read and looked as though sculptured from marble. His chin was put up, pride and confidence radiating from his ramrod straight posture and his penetrative gaze.

"Renhol says you will need a few more days to rest and that you should continue to eat slowly and often," he added. "If you want to use the bathroom, I suggest you knock. You are sharing it with Kati."

Carol looked around, bewildered, but whatever questions she might have went unanswered, because he pivoted on a heel and left.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

The door did not chime, but rather Kati came directly in. His people knew that if he was in the ready room rather than his quarters, he was unquestionably available. He did not turn from his observation of the spectrum of the warp tunnel through the chamber's narrow and tall window. Kati asked the replicator for a glass of water. He then heard her move about, taking a seat at his desk.

"What do you think happened?" she inquired after a few moments of easy, companionable silence. "The Earth we knew was divided, disorganized, torn by wars and unfairness, but it was never quite like this... not everywhere, anyway. By all accounts, it should be better. They can summon food, water and clothing from thin air and can travel to space, which is infinite, so there is no need to fight for land and resources. What could have gone so wrong?"

"You have read their historical accounts the same way I did," he remarked mildly, not fully tearing himself from his musings.

The glass clinked, as she set him on the metal table. "We both recognize propaganda on sight, Khan."

"Power and the technology of one errand alien ship who unwittingly ignited the ambition of a confused group of humans after a devastating nuclear war. One wrong decision followed another and then another... . We all remember those, Kati, or how dreams of a better world grow poisonous and misguided."

He turned to look at her. His old friend's eyes were ablaze. Regret mixed with uncertainty in those familiar hazel depths.

"It wasn't the same," she said grimly. "We were attacked first."

He lifted an eyebrow. "It doesn't matter now. It was a long time ago. We are here, we survived." He paused, letting the moment pass. Their history weighted heavily on all of their shoulders and in that room its presence was so poignant, that it was as though it were a third party to their conversation. "How is your neighbor?"

"Quiet," she replied promptly. "She keeps staring at me, when she thinks I'm not paying attention, as though I'm about to tear her open with my bare hands and eat her. Renhold says she's not keeping her appointments."

He nodded imperceptibly. Kati was concerned, but she would not question him, now that his decision had been made. Khan acknowledged her doubts and even shared them. They could trust no one but each other, they had no one but each other, stranded three hundred years out of their time, flung into the vast bareness of space, tiptoeing around a tyrannical empire lead by blood-thirsty psychopaths, who would kill them all the second they outlived their usefulness. He needed all the resources he could get, if he were to escape with his people. But someone with Carol Marcus' qualifications would never willingly work with them or even if they did, they would betray them given half a chance. Carol was a slave with nothing to lose and nowhere else to go, nowhere to run. And he knew from experience that despair drove people to do just about anything, regardless of the reason they had to hate the person lending them a hand. Taking on Marcus' daughter had been a calculated risk, but it was one he had to take.

Khan walked to the door. "You should rest, Kati. Your shift ended an hour ago," he told her kindly on his way out.

# # #

Khan knocked on Carol Marcus' door. She let him in quickly, though it was obvious he had roused her from sleep. There was a pink pillow imprint on the left side of her face. Her golden hair cascaded messily past her shoulder in tousled strands. Her mismatched eyes were swollen and restless, her gaze darting uneasily around her room, going anywhere but in his direction. The scrap of material barely covered her still too thin body. Bones stuck out of her tiny shoulders, which trembled slightly. Her heart beat like that of a scared rabbit. Her spirit had been broken through brutality, any inner strength she might have had trampled upon and ripped straight out of her. All she knew now was blind survival and stark terror.

Pity surged within him, but he snuffed it. His first duty was to his kin and family and they were on borrowed time. He needed to plan ahead in order to protect the people he held most dear. Obedience had been instilled into Carol Marcus and that was something he could use to his advantage. To a degree, to hers as well.

"You will go to see the doctor," he said in a tone of voice that made even augments stand to attention, training a commanding gaze upon her. "Later. Now get dressed. I want to show you something."

He turned around to give her privacy. "I know you have no reason to believe me, but you are safe on this ship. Nobody will lay an unwanted hand on you. Not me and not anyone else."

The rustle of clothing behind him stopped. "I'm ready," she said timidly.

He whirled around only to discover that her definition of dressed consisted of a low-cut, purple bustier and a matching sash so short it verged on indecent. He almost felt uncomfortable looking at her while she was wearing that. How the Terran Empire had managed to win any battles with soldiers dressed practically in underwear was beyond him.

She was still shaking, her gaze now fixed on the floor. His assurances had rung hollow to her ear, but he didn't blame her. Khan had survived a childhood in a medical facility as a lab-rat, being hunted by mercenaries and every government on the planet that had known about his kin's existence and several wars. He recognized a trauma than ran deeper than the marrow in the bone. No matter how much time it would pass, Carol Marcus would never forget and could never be put together again. Despite himself, something deep within him wept for her, awakening the same ancient instinct that had always made him act more like a father within his family than a brother, the unfathomable urge to shelter and protect. It was a powerful one, just like his anger against those who had the misfortune of scorning him.

He took one step in her direction and then another and another. He raised a hand and used it to cover her right cheek, lifting her chin with his thumb. Her lower lip was trembling and her eyes were full of fear. His free arm wrapped itself around her waist and he drew her against his body. He held her close, her cheek pressed to his chest. Her tears seeped into the material of his shirt, the wetness reaching the skin underneath. She didn't sniffle, just cried quietly in his arms, as they cradled her.

# # #

Carol looked upon the largest weapons bay she had ever seen: filled with drones, torpedoes and armored shuttles.

"Why do you need me, when you can build all these yourself, despite the three hundred gap in knowledge of technology?" she asked.

"Even I can't be in two places at once. I need someone to design ground defenses and see them raised from scratch. And I need an expert in applied physics to see to civilian installations."

She looked at him standing on the edge of the alcove above the weapons bay with narrowed eyes. "The Empire would give you a planet of your own?"

He turned his head towards her. His eyes changed color with the light and were now a brilliant steel blue, darker on the edges and speckled with gold around the pupils. There was viciousness in them, viciousness and contempt. She found it easier to stare him in the face now. She had expected the worst, when he had reached for her in her quarters, but instead he had hugged and comforted her. Even now she still felt the solid warmth of his body anchoring hers.

"Christopher Pike sent us to patrol the Klingon border hoping that his enemies will take care of the problem, before he has to," he told her. "Or better yet, before I take over Starfleet myself or overthrow the Emperor."

Carol felt nothing at his calm pronouncement. The Emperor was a cruel, capricious dictator. History remembered Khan just the same. Despite his apparent kindness to her, she didn't see the difference but appreciated his caution in surrounding himself with weapon specialists.

"He need not worry," he went on and peeled himself off the railing he was currently leaning against. "They can keep their empire. It's a giant with feet of clay that will not last through the century. All I want is a home for my family, a planet that will accept your rule or an empty one. Either will do."

She gawked at him as if he were mad. Perhaps he was. "The Empire has endured for hundreds for years."

"Through terror and terror lasts only until people stop being afraid."

She opened her mouth and then quickly shut it, reminding herself she was no longer a free woman and that she was better off holding her tongue before her master.

"You can speak freely with me," he said.

"I... ." The words were burning in her throat, but her lips would not move. Everyone in the Empire was wise enough not to speak freely, if they wished to live. So much as painting freely had killed her mother.

He took a step in her direction. "Say what you wanted to!" He voiced it like a command.

Tears prickled at her eyes. "You built your empire through force," she whispered.

A slight smile grazed his lips. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

She nodded her head energetically.

"All empires are built through force, but they are maintained through order and rule of law... and long-lasting peace, not by overextending the front lines through mindless contest."

He stopped right in front of her, his presence overpowering, and produced an agonizer from his pocket.

Carol froze in place, her heart stuttering in her chest, fresh fear singing in her blood, but she did not flinch away. To do so would only double the time she would be in pain.

He held the instrument at the level of her eyes. "Renhold and we discovered that a creative use of this erases a slave's serial number."

The number he spoke of had been burnt high on the left side of her chest. It was supposed to be impossible to remove.

"What you are suggesting is a capital crime," she said weakly, barely able to believe the words coming from her mouth.

"So is slavery," he snapped, his voice raising slightly. "I had a serial number, too, once. It was on a tracker put in my head. I crushed the skull of the man you did that, when I was fifteen years old." He lowered the agonizer to her chest. "This will hurt, but there are no sedatives that can by-pass the effect of the instrument."

She shook her head. "Erasing the number won't make me free, just an escaped slave."

"Not on my ship," he groused.

"So you'll let me go?" she inquired before she could stop herself.

He smiled again. "You have nowhere to go. In the Empire you'll always be a slave. The same is true with the Orions, the Cardassians and the Gorn. The Klingons execute any human on sight; the Romulans torture them first. And the Tholians will cut you open to see what's inside." He pressed the agonizer into her skin, without turning it on. The metal was cold.

She raised a trembling hand to rest on his wrist to stall him. "Did you kill my father?"

He did not move the agonizer. "I did. He held my family hostage and threatened to bleed them dry while I watched, if I didn't build him the weapons and warships he wanted from me. There is nothing I would not do for the people I hold most dear."

He looked at her with eyes that were now golden-green and filled with grief and determination. "Hold onto me," he ordered and Carol grabbed onto his shoulders, her fingers digging into muscle through the material of his shirt.

The pain was instantaneous and sharp, slicing through her, as though the device had ripped her chest open, grabbed onto her heart and twisted it viciously. A cry was torn from her and it felt as if it had been pried from the depths of her soul. She couldn't remembered it hurting it so terribly before. His lips moved, but the words fell too far away from her ears. She was trapped in a vertigo of suffering that split her nerves. Then it was over, the agonizer removed from her body. Her knees buckled, but his arm around her waist supported her. She had not realized when he had touched her. Her cheeks were wet and she was shaking harder than before.

"It's over," he assured in a low voice.

Carol looked down at her body. The serial number was gone, leaving her skin red and irritated in its wake. An unreasonable joy bubbled in her chest and smiled through her tears. Her hands were still on his shoulders.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Carol was changing out of the medical gown, while Renhol surveyed the readings on the screen attached to the biobed. "You are recovering quite nicely, but I would like to keep you on calcium hypos for your bones for a few more weeks... if you would keep your appointments from now on."

"I will," Carol rasped. "I'm sorry. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to leave my quarters."

"If the augments want a room on this ship to be off limits to you, it'd be locked by a code you don't have and protected by a DNA scan you cannot hope to match."

"Why did you help the augments find a way to remove the slavers' serial number?"

"Because I wanted mine off."

Carol jumped off the bed and stared her at her. "You are a slave?"

"Was a slave," the Trill corrected sharply.

"I didn't mean to offend you. It's just that I've never heard of a slave trained to be a doctor. Medical studies are too expensive for that."

Renhold's face took on a far-way look. "I wasn't always a slave, but I had the wrong ideas about the practice of medicine. I thought doctors should be healers, not torturers and executioners. It was just a matter of time, until I treated the wrong person the wrong way and I was caught. Khan bought me because he needed someone knowledgeable of 23rd century health care. All I am on this ship is a medic, not a slave, not a whore and not a Trill without a symbiont. I have free reign of my infirmary, free access to its replicator and nobody abused me, since I set foot on the Vengeance. Did you know that its agony booth is disabled?"

Carol frowned. "You admire them?" she blurted out incredulously.

The Trill shrugged, as she picked at a hypo from a nearby tray. "I've heard they were condemned as criminals in Earth's past. I don't care. In the present, they've treated me fairly. All they've asked in return is my loyalty. A reasonable price in my book." She brandished her dispenser. Carol inclined her head to let her inject it in her neck. The hypo pinched its way in.

"Wherever the augments are going can't be worse than where we've been, can we?" the doctor asked thickly, as she put away the device.

# # #

The Vengeance had been patrolling the Klingon frontier for three times as long a regular Starfleet ship would. The tension of being only a flimsy strip of space away from a well-armed and hostile alien empire and the exhaustion of the long shifts got even to the augments. Nerves were frayed and should they confronted by a host of birds-of-prey, Pike's cowardly plan might just come to fruition and the problem they posed to the humans would come to an end. Even if they were to be called back across the border, Khan knew they would be walking into a trap and Starfleet would blow them to smithereens. No, there was no going back now. It was time for that, for which he had been preparing for a while by acquiring supplies and people with valuable expertise.

In Starfleet loyalty came at a price and the Terran Empire recklessly squandered riches someone like him with his ear to the ground got to pick up. So he had bought himself various pieces of information that might come in handy. This way he had heard of a technologically backwards humanoid culture that had stumbled across a natural wormhole. It was unstable and offered no safe passage for any ship that might venture through it, but it did open to random points in the Gamma and the Delta Quadrants, decades away from the Sol system. No one knew what was out there in those two quadrants, but Khan knew what was not: the Terran Empire. Other than that, all he wanted was a planet with a breathable atmosphere for himself and his family, a place they could make into a home of their own.

The journey to the wormhole would not be easy, as they had no way of avoiding imperial territory and the Vengeance was not the kind of a ship to avoid detection. But he saw no other way. The Terran Empire and his family could never co-exist.

# # #

Carol nodded on her neighbor's door with a hesitant hand. The augment woman opened almost instantly and looked at her with curious eyes. She was dressed as the rest of her people were, which was a lot by 23rd century standards: a long-sleeved tunic buttoned all the way to the neck and pants that reached to her ankles.

"Hello," Carol began uncertainly. "We started off on the wrong foot."

"We didn't start off on any foot. You've barely spoken two words to me."

"I was afraid of what you'd do to me." Carol extended her arm to her. "My name is Carol Marcus."

The augment grinned and grasped her fingers, squeezing them firmly. "Kati. Come in. We can share a cup of that awful concoction the replicator mistakes for tea."

# # #

"Permission to come on the bridge," Carol requested from the threshold.

The augments manning the consoles did not react. Khan was seating in the captain's seat, his hands spread on the armrests, his posture positively regal, dominating the bridge effortlessly. He turned his head towards her, but his body remained ramrod straight. "Granted," he said in a calm, neutral tone. He gestured one-handedly that she approached.

She stepped towards him, acutely feeling as though she were walking towards the throne of a king. "What do you need me to do?" she asked once she was right in front of him.

# # #

Carol wanted to believe it was all real: Renhol's words, Khan's assurances, the access to food and medical care and the promise of freedom far, far away from the Empire's tyrannical clutches. But hope was a rare commodity in her world, an illusion that could easily get one killed. Still she was tempted, eased into it by the disappearance of the serial number branding her a slave and the absence of pain from her body. Her skin was milky white again, devoid of bruises and scratches, and the left side of her chest no longer ached from prologued sessions with the agonizer or from being locked in the agony booth. She slept on a real bed and if her nightmares didn't let her rest, she could always ask and be given a sedative. She was beginning to build muscle mass again and had free access to the ship's gym.

In some odd ways, she felt safer on the Vengeance than she had ever had anywhere else before. Despite her father's position, she had never been completely spared unwanted advances, impertinent looks and the occasional invasive touch. But the augments kept their distance. Nobody stared at her body but looked her in the eye and nobody, not even Khan, even got close enough to lay an outward finger on her. It was surreal and it made her very much aware of how much worse it could have been and what she had escaped. But at night, the dreams returned, leaving her shaky and uncertain in the morning, and reminding her how easy it could all go away. Her world survived on terror. Even Khan had acknowledged that much. And terror was the very reason she had been born.

Her mother had been an artist, whose paintings had been deemed unpatriotic. Her father had offered to make the charges go away, if she slept with him. She had refused or so the rumor had it. Carol didn't doubt that it was true. It was what she would have done in her place and cliché or not, blood was thicker than water. Her mother had been executed, before Carol had turned one. Her father thought she didn't know any of this, just like he thought she didn't know that the rebellion had not been completely crushed, when Hoshi Sato proclaimed herself empress a century earlier. But he had loved her in his own way. She had been the only being in the entire universe her Dad had ever loved. And though at times she had hated him, she had also loved him. He had been her only family, the only person she could truly trust. That was why she had never run away, despite her secret sympathies for the rebellion. In the end, it had been her downfall. Members of the resistance were executed on sight so that news of it could not spread; daughters of disgraced admirals were sold into slavery. It was no questions of which she would have preferred.

It was also beyond the shadow of a doubt what she had to do to ensure her place on the Vengeance. For now Khan needed her, but what was to become of her, once she had outlived her usefulness? Still it was hard. Just the thought of a man on top of her, after what the Orions and Decker and his senior officers had done to her, turned her stomach. She wondered if it had been easier, if Khan had given her an opening. But he had not. At first, she had suspected he had lover or a wife among those of his kind and was loyal to her out of some outdated 20th century social convention, but she had not noticed him afford any special favor to any of the augments, though he was on friendly terms with all of them. Then she had thought the way she dressed and carried herself was unappealing to him and replicated herself clothes like those of those of the augment women: plain, lacking in embroidery and golden finishes, beige, white or dark in color, and covering her from neck to ankles. She knotted her long hair in twists on top of her head or wore it in a simple pony-tale.

The Trill doctor and her augment neighbor complimented her on the changes, but Khan could no care less. It would seem she would have to take initiative all by herself. So one evening by ship's time, she put on a long, wrap dress, like she had seen the augment women wear while they were off-duty, strapped her hair in a loop on her nape, and went to knock on Khan's door. He opened it with a frown marring his face, several creases denting the upper part of his nose. His eyes were dark. They traveled over her from head to toe in a clinical manner, no heat permeating his gaze. He stepped aside without a word, letting her in. The door sealed itself shut behind her.

Carol spared his quarters a single, furtive glance. They were startlingly similar to those of the rest, simple, furnished with the bare minimum. The only notable distinction was the stack of antiquated, paper book piled on his desk. She turned to him and stretched her arms to wrap them around his neck. He moved before she could see him, fast as a cobra, and grasped her wrists, blocking her advance.

"Have dinner with me," he said coolly, the scowl smoothening itself off his face.

She blinked. "What?"

"Dinner," he repeated, releasing her. "Would you like to have dinner with me?"

Carol nodded, recalling the Decker had liked to eat first, too. Dinner was a relatively modest affair: a chicken dish and dessert, but he had actual sapphire wine, which was more than welcome given that her replicator didn't produce anything stronger than coffee. Maybe a little alcohol would help things go a bit easier. A little more alcohol would help things a lot so she drank heavily, especially since he was more interested in nursing his glass throughout their entire meal. He did most of the talking, too, about weapons, tactics and plans to get to a wormhole nearby the Barzan homeworld in order to flee to another quadrant. It was a good move and she found herself not the first time admiring his obvious brilliance and his talent for strategic calculations. She peered at him as discreetly as she could manage with the wine clouding her head and noted just how handsome he was, too. And he had lovely hands, with elongated, perfectly-drawn fingers. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to feel them all over her body. But at the same time, she knew that those beautiful hands could be deadly, possessing a strength that Decker or any Orion could never have, and inflict untold damage upon her.

Her heart sped in fear and she drank even more to quell it, welcoming the rapidly progressing dullness of her senses, until she could feel and remember nothing anymore.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

Dante had described nine circles of Hell but had missed the tenth and worst of them all: the Terran Empire. This was one hell, in which Khan did not want to rule. This was the kind of hell one could only escape. This was the true city of woe drawn in the sea of terror it had created and that was now crushing it. He had known it all along, but Carol's coming to him like a lamb to the slaughter, in a misguided and unnecessary attempt to seduce him, had cemented it. What under different circumstances would have been Carol's crystalline, brilliant mind was now altered by trauma and the horrific abuse and violations she had endured. He had derailed her by inviting her to dinner, only to watch her imbibe to dull her fear, her accelerated heart-beat unbearably loud in the stillness of his quarters.

She drank until she could barely stand up straight and her eye-lids were drooping, her eyes glassy, red blotches creeping onto her cheeks. Even so she was beautiful, but it was her mind, even twisted and tarnished, that truly interested him. After everything she had been through, bent as she was, she was still not broken. Every now and then he caught a sparkle of what had once been a roaring fire in her eyes. She averted them quickly and the light was dim, but it was there. It glimmered whenever she found something fascinating about the weapons he had built, or whenever she liked one of his plans and sometimes when his people spoke to her as though to an equal. Khan was in no hurry to extinguish those embers for good.

He stood and rounded the table to get to her. Drunk as she was, her heart still stuttered, her fear no doubt intensifying. He helped her to her feet and she wavered, all but falling against him. She would not look at him. He half-carried, half-supported her to the bed, pushed the duvet away, and lay her down. Then he removed her shoes. Her breathing was loud in the too quiet room. She was staring blindly at the ceiling, shivering ever so slightly. He pulled the covers over her and ordered the lights off.

"No," she whimpered. "Don't leave me alone."

The bed clothes rustled, as she shifted around probably blindly groping for him. He didn't know if she was asking, because the sudden darkness had scratched at the open wounds trauma had left on her psyche, a result of her alcohol-impaired judgment, or her isolation, trapped on a potentially hostile ship with nowhere else in whole galaxy to go to, had finally caught up with her. But in any case, her desperation-laced plea found an echo in him and it all came crashing down right at that very moment: the long, exhausting patrol, the responsibility of protecting his imperiled crew and the nightmare, to which he had been awoken. He toed off his own shoes and lay atop the covers next to her, resting an arm over her waist. She sighed softly and shifted even closer, cuddling up to his immobile body.

In the silence that followed, he waited until her breathing evened out as a sign that she had fallen asleep. He almost never admitted to it, but sometimes even he craved comfort and a warm, human touch.

# # #

Carol awoke, warm and securely held in someone's arms, her cheek pressed against a solid surface, a steady beat rapping against it and reverberating painfully inside her skull. Her eyes opened to complete darkness and when she tried to shift around, one arm tightened possessively around her waist. She moaned softly. Her head was splitting and her mouth felt like cotton. Then she was rolled to the side, the move making her queasy. A familiar deep baritone said something about a hang-over. That sounded about right, but she never remembered feeling having one this bad. She drifted off only to snap wide awake, when something pinched at the side of her neck. Khan's face floated into view. She blinked.

He held up a hypo. "Hang-over remedy," he said in an even voice and then lifted a glass of water to her lips.

"Thank you," she croaked then drained the liquid thirstily. Her thirst was beginning to clear and she realized with a start that her head had been the only one to hurt and she was still fully dressed.

Her memory of the previous night was fuzzy at best, a few disjointed imagines dancing in her mind, but still she was fairly certain nothing had happened between them. The question burnt her lips. Why? After all, it would have been easy and drunk or sober, she had been willing. So why not take advantage of it, if it had been easy? But she did not get to ask. His severe gaze silenced her.

"Never attempt something like this again," he said, voice cold.

Panic leaped in her throat, but she did not flinch away, gaze buried into those kaleidoscopic orbs of his. If he were to kill her for her mishap, she wanted to die on her feet so to speak, looking her killer in the eye. Instinctively her hand leaped to her chest, her palm pressing onto the cloth-covered patch where her slave serial number had been. She was irrationally grateful to him that she would not have to lose her life with that particular scarlet letter etched onto her.

"I need what you know, what you can do," he further elaborated. "Nothing else. Do you understand?"

She gave him a jerky nod, still unsure of the damage her thoughtless move had done to her safety.

"Say it out loud," he commanded. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, I do," he said quickly.

He looked at her hard, his gaze so piercing, she felt as though it was trying to reach into her head and verify the verity of her reply. Maintaining eye contact was a chore, but she managed it. After a while he nodded back.

"Good. You may use my bathroom, if you wish to."

# # #

The Augments made a run for it. They broke off from the Klingon border and crossed into imperial territory, keeping complete subspace silence, as they crawled their way at snare pace on thin ice with the water below booby-trapped through what was de facto enemy space and towards the uncertain and distant safety of the Barzan wormhole. If they were caught, they would be killed. Not immediately, of course. They would be tortured first and then killed. Slowly and as painfully as possible. If Cartwright had managed to gain enough clout with Starfleet Command, he would be given the honor to do in Carol. Khan required her on the bridge almost at all hours, since, as a former Starfleet officer and daughter of the highest-ranking admiral, her knowledge of internal security was much more advanced than anything that had been allowed to him. Even if what she knew was slightly out of date, it still was of great help in their insane endeavor of sneaking through the Empire, while a manhunt was undoubtedly on-going for them.

She fainted twice from exhaustion and the doctor pumped her full of every stimulant her human body could take. She got several allergic reactions from them, but she refused all offered breaks. Worse than the fatigue, the splitting head-aches, the irritated, red blotches from the too many hypos or the ensuing infection in one case, was the idea of getting caught. She could not go back into the hands of the Empire. She could not bear the thought of seeing Cartwright again, let alone that of what he would do to her, what others like him would do to her, if she were to be captured. When she tumbled to the floor, drained of all energy, for a third time, Khan himself carried her to the infirmary himself and when she woke up, threatened to tied her to the bed, if she did not rest.

She scrambled backwards on the biobed, panicking. "Please... don't... I'll do anything you want."

The crease between his eyebrows deepened, an emotion she had never before seen in him flickering on his features: pity. Then it disappeared, replaced by the customary authority-tinged blankness.

"I know," he said quietly, stepping closer to her bed. His right hand shot forward and gently clasped her shoulder, his fingers pressing into her tense muscles and squeezing slightly. "You have been of great help to us."

"I can't go back... I can never go back," she babbled, fear still singing in her veins.

His hand slid up, stroke briefly against the side of her neck before cupping her left cheek, and she shivered. "You won't," he insisted. "Look at me!" He would not continue, until she stared him in the eye. "There is nothing I would not do for my family. As long as you are on this ship, you are safe. I promise."

Perhaps it was an off-shot of her fear, but she believed him. She nodded. His palm was warm and steady against her face, while she trembled. He bent over her and brushed his lips against her, the touch nothing but chaste.

"I though you said...," she murmured.

"I know what I said, but if you want to, genuinely, I am willing to discuss it, once we are on the other side of that wormhole. Just as long as you are aware that denying me comes at no cost and bears no consequences." He straightened himself and released her. "But you should also be aware that sleeping is also not a means to curry favors."

She lowered her gaze again. "I asked you to stay with me... that night, after we had dinner and I got drunk. And you did. I thought I dreamt it, but I didn't, did I?"

He sat on the edge of the bed, next to her. "No, you did not."

She raised her head to look at him again. His expression was stormy, a hint of something much like sadness adorning his eyes.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked.

He drew her into his lap, his arms squeezing her against him. She let him.

"Because humans aren't the only ones in need of comfort."

She pressed her face against his chest, her nose scrunched against his biceps. "He raped me... Cartwright and others," she said after a few minutes of companionable silence. Tears leaked out of her eyes, wetting the material of his shirt.

"I know."

There was a strange twinge to his voice and she wanted to lift her head again to look at his face, but his fingers treaded into her hair, trapping her against his chest.

"Your father employed a wide variety of methods to control me, in addition to keeping my friends prisoners."

She froze, as her stomach roiled. "Did he...?"

"Not personally, but he did order it and was in the room... watching every time it happened." His fist tightened in her hair, pulling on it so hard, that her scalp tightened and hurt. She thought she heard tears in his tone, when he spoke.

"How can you stand to look at me?" she asked after a moment's hesitation. There was a funny ringing in her ears. Agonizers, torture and murders were daily occurrences in Starfleet and part of the Empire's official policies. She had accepted them as such, though striving to have no part in any of it. But some nights, in the privacy of her innermost thoughts, she used to fantasize about running away and joining the resistance, although she could have never stomached the thought of ending up shooting at her own father. Now she regretted not having done it.

"I have your father's confidential files. I copied them when I escaped and failed to share that tidbit of information with Pike and Kirk later. I know you are innocent of all of his doings, which makes it all the more ironic that, though you were the one who lived, you are also the one who paid the worst price."

She shuddered again but said nothing only wept quietly cradled in the arms of his father's assassin, to whom she felt connected through an unexpected link of victim-hood. They were both broken beyond repair in a universe that was just wrong.

# # #

Khan sat in the captain's seat on the bridge of the ship he had built for the Terran Empire only to run away with his people in it and watched the vortex of azure and silver of the Barzan wormhole burst open against the eternal night of space. They had made it. A hostile world stretched behind them. The unknown awaited on the other side. He could feel everyone's eyes on him. He glanced to the helm.

"Lay in a course for the wormhole. Warp factor 6," he ordered.

Next his eyes tracked Carol at a console to his left. In the chorus of heart-beats on the bridge hers rapped the loudest, as though it was attempting to break free of her rib-cage. Their gazes met and held. He let his lips curve in what hoped was a reassuring smile. Her lips trembled, when she smiled back.

**~ the end ~**


End file.
